


The Forest

by Logically



Series: No matter how [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't copy to another site, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Swearing, Zuko's sister is awful so im giving him a new one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22529695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Logically/pseuds/Logically
Summary: "I want to fight you."Ai's eyebrows scaled towards her hairline and she looked at the prince, searching for the punch line, only to find the most furiously serious expression she'd ever seen.She turned a disbelieving look on Iroh, who sighed. "That is a rather simplified version, but that is the gist of what we would ask of you."What the fuck?
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: No matter how [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620994
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The creators of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" are Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. I do not own "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and nor do I claim to. I am making no monetary profit from this work: I am writing this for fun and writing practice, not for profit.  
> The "Avatar: The Last Airbender" comic referenced in this work is "Relics" by Johane Matte, Joshua Hamilton and Hye Jung Kim. I do not own "Relics" or it's associated franchise, and nor do I claim to. Please support the original release!  
> Information gained from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender_(comics)#Short_stories  
> Articles: "Avatar: The Last Airbender (comics)" and "Short stories"  
> Date accssesed: 02/02/2020
> 
> I seriously don't believe that ALL of the air benders died; I mean, it's referenced in-show that Aang had a friend in the Fire Nation, so there must have been friendly relations between the two countries at one point. If that's the case, I refuse to believe that there weren't at least some Fire Nation people who tried to warn their Air Nomad buddies when they caught wind of Sozin's plan. The Western Air Temple was empty of skeletons, as far as we know.
> 
> So I give you this: mostly canon, but with the addition of a small, maybe-not-as-secretive-as-she-should-be air bender who is often bewildered by the ridiculous things happening around her. She's not a self-insert, but she is also serving as practice for me at writing my own characters instead of pre-exisiting ones.
> 
> // around sentences indicate that they are thoughts.

Ai was once the pride of her hometown. By far the youngest resident by at least two decades, she'd been the darling of the elderly folk that made up most of the population and had grown up with her cheeks near constantly numb from all the pinching. That's not even mentioning the recipes and random nuggets of wisdom that were constantly thrown her way - although she could have done without Old Lady Terumi's advice about what precisely to do to snag herself a "nice, rich husband." No one even seemed to consider that she'd be perfectly content running the small apothecary by her father's side until he was old and grey, and that her plans for after that were to run the shop until SHE was old and grey, just like the rest of the town's residents. Besides, it wasn't like she was going to find any prospective husbands where she was. 

The tiny village of Huide didn't exist on most maps, and on those that did include it the writing was small and squashed, the place clearly an afterthought. The reasons for this were mostly boring and likely only to be heard about if one of the citizens felt like reminiscing about "the good old days", back when work was still able to be found in the mines located half a mountain over and young people still had an incentive to move there. To anyone well-versed in the ways of the world it was easy to see that the place was on its way to becoming a ghost town; the original resident's children and grandchildren had mostly moved away in pursuit of better lives, and no one would be left to inhabit the houses after the owners died. There might have been hope for the place if the significant powers of the Earth Kingdom paid attention to the place, but tax collectors hadn't been by in decades (much to the population's delight). Huide had even gone almost completely untouched by the war, the only indication that it was even happening the occasional deserter or lost soldier that popped up once or twice a year. 

It was in all honesty the perfect place to hide. 

For a long time, Ai hadn't understood this. She thought the reason she couldn't go into the village without one of her parents was because the trek to the village from her house was dangerous for a small child (ridiculous, but adults were so strange sometimes) which wasn't untrue, but also not the whole truth. She thought the reason why she was discouraged from listening to Old Man Dan's rantings about storm spirits was because storm spirits weren't real, and her parents didn't want her to believe in things that didn't exist. (Also true, but also not the point.) 

She hadn't understood even when she was six years old and the wind had blown Chen's hat off of his head and onto their roof while he was visiting. Ai liked Chen. At the time, he had been the person closest to her age that she'd ever met, and she appreciated the time he took to chat (update) her parents and bully them into learning Pai Sho so that they had something to do on rainy days. Mostly, though, she appreciated the sweets and stories he brought back from cities whose names she memorised even if they meant nothing to her. It wouldn't be until she was much older that she realised that she actually had no idea who Chen was, had always assumed that he was the grandchild of one of the elderly residents that had befriended her parents while visiting. 

It was because she liked Chen that she tried to get the hat back. She probably wouldn't have done it for Old Lady Terumi, who spoke about finding young, handsome men far too often, and definetly not for Old Man Dan, who seemed to have taken offense that she wasn't interested in hearing the same complaint for the nth time, but she would have done it for Chen. 

Frustratingly she had almost succeeded before being interrupted. Her father's startled exclamation of her name had caused her to turn quickly in his direction, which had the added effect of making her lose her footing. 

What followed would remain Ai's clearest memory of her childhood, unstained by the passage of time right up until the day she died. The air had almost seemed to scream as it rushed past her ears (or maybe that was her father screaming), and the ground leapt up to meet her. As soon as it registered what was happening, she moved her right arm sharply in a desperate bid to protect her face. 

Instead of becoming a bloody red pile on the ground, Ai instead floated upwards. Suddenly her vision shifted as she was gently flipped over, so instead of crashing headfirst she landed softly on her feet. 

There had been silence, and then her father had made an awful sound, somewhere between hysterical laughter and a sob. Worried, Ai had ran over and immediately attached herself to his legs, babbling that she was okay and the fall didn't even hurt her at all, see? He hadn't replied, just knelt down and crushed her to his chest. Ai had been astonished to feel wetness on her head; she'd never known either of her parents to cry. 

There had been lots of shouting, that night. The adults had waited until past her bedtime to start arguing with each other, but it was still easy to hear their raised voices if not the contents of them. Mother had been the loudest, saying something about promises and danger and using a lot of words her six year old daughter couldn't understand. 

Mother had left with Chen the next morning, leaving a very confused child and grim-faced husband behind. With one last smile and wave, Ai's mother had disappeared into the dawn. It had been absurdly early, meaning that none of the other residents were awake to see her leave. 

Ai still hadn't understood a lot of things, but that day she'd been made to understand several truths about the world as her father spoke sternly at her from across the kitchen table. One of them was that there had been Airbenders once, but now her and her father were the only ones left. Another was that she was to keep her bending an absolute secret from anyone who wasn't her parents or Chen, because if the wrong people found out then they'd take her away. No matter how much she asked though she never got any straight answers as to why mother left, or who the "wrong people" were. 

From that day forward, Ai's life changed in ways an outsider probably wouldn't be able to notice. She still helped her father prepare poultices and medicines, still did odd jobs around the village that the elderly folk couldn't comfortably do, still didn't enter the village without her father at her side. Unknown to anyone outside their little family, Ai spent a few hours training every day, repeating the same movements her father demonstrated until she couldn't get them wrong. Sudden bursts of wind battered the side of their house, and her home was always a few degrees cooler than anyone else's on hot summer days. 

Years went by. Mother returned to Huide once or twice a year, sometimes with Chen and sometimes without. Ai was always happy to see her, but the secrecy over what she was doing that she'd rather spend her time on than with her family grated at her. In order to find out, she started eavesdropping on her and Chen's conversations when she was nine years old. 

Now, she had known vaguely that there was a war on. That people were dying and homes were being destroyed, but the things she heard made her stomach roil. By the time she was caught, she was too shocked to care. 

After much frantic whispering, her mother had knelt down to her eye level and grasped her hands. "Ai," she began, "You must not let what you just heard distort your view if the world. No matter what element they hand or side of the war that they're on, people are people, and most people hurt each other for what seems to others like stupid reasons. No one are the villains in their own stories, and many just do as they're told. Truly evil people are actually difficult to find." The whole time she had been speaking Chen had been frowning, but by the end it had morphed into a scowl. Ai finds out why the next day, when she's being taught to stab things (people) with a dagger Chen had shoved into her small hands. 

"She'll need a proper weapon," He calmly mentioned to her father, but the look on his face hadn't matched his tone of voice. "What for?" The other demands, whirling to face him. "Huide is one of the safest places in the world right now! " 

Chen had raised a singular eyebrow that she decidedly didn't like and responded: "For how long though? More land is getting taken every week. You know it's only a matter of time." Her father's shoulders had slumped, defeated, and used one hand to cover his eyes while using the other to make a "go on" gesture. Chen had then smiled over at her, but it hadn't reached his eyes. "Well then, let's see how good you are with the dao."

The answer was not very good, but when she told him this, he'd just clicked his tongue and told her that sparring against the same opponent all the time had given her bad habits, as if that was supposed to make sense. He ended up staying for three years instructing her. 

Father hugged her more often after her training with the dao began, which was slightly problematic due to her sore muscles, but ultimately nice. It was also around this time that he began to show her the book she hadn't even been allowed to touch before: the ones that detailed poisonous plants and how a person might mistakenly ingest them. It was while she was reading one of these that she thought to ask what mother actually did. 

Father looked up and said he wasn't sure, but today that she was a traveling Earth Kingdom merchant if anyone asked. 

On her twelfth birthday, Chen had gifted her with her own blades, much to her father's poorly concealed consternation. The next day Chen left without a word, which left her father fuming and herself confused. 

A week later, her father sat her down and told her what happened to the Airbenders. Her teacup had slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor because she hadn't truly accepted what it meant to be the last ones left. 

"You musn't hate the Fire Nation, daughter," he'd sighed. "A lot of them never agreed with Sozin's plans for the world, and they and their families suffered for it. My grandmother, your great-grandmother, was an Air Nun from the Western Temple." His lips upturned slightly at her gasp, but they quickly settled back into a thin line. "The Air Nomads were called that for a reason. They moved between the Temples, but all over the world too. Plenty of them had friends in the Fire Nation, and those who didn't agree with Sozin tried to hide their friends away, including my grandmother." Here he paused, and then fixed his child with a stare that made her back go ramrod straight. "Most of them paid for it with their lives. Sozin was ruthless, and wanted no one who was even vaguely associated with the Temples left alive."

"He didn't get great-grandmother though," she whispered, which earned her a strained smile. "No he didn't, and the credit for that goes to the Fire Nation boy who managed to whisk her away before the Temples were hit. The same Fire Nation boy ended up being your great-grandfather." She must have made a spectacular face because the man didn't stop laughing for a few minutes. After he sobered again, he had been sure to keep eye contact with her while he told her this: "So you see, it's perfectly alright to hate an individual if they've done something awful, but it isn't fine to hate them for something they can't help, like where they were born or what element they bend. You should still be extremely wary of anyone wearing red armor, there is a war on after all, but it isn't fair to people like your great-grandfather who want nothing to do with the Fire Lord's plans if you hate the nation as a whole."

"But how can you tell? " She'd asked. "How can you tell if someone isn't okay with what they're being told to do? "A lot of the time you can't, but sometimes they make it exceedingly obvious. The Fire Nation has deserters, too." 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Nothing of note happened until she was fifteen. Her father, having learned from the scraps his family could pass down stealthily, was no Airbending master and had taught Ai all he could. She'd gotten so familiar with Earth Kingdom plants that she'd started pestering him for what he knew about foreign ones, even though she'd likely never see them. Practice with her dao was necessary but almost unbearably dull; the elderly and traditional folk would be scandalized if they saw a girl with a sword, so she only had a small area to practice in and no one to spar with. 

In short, she was bored. 

She snuck out to the village more often, doing odd jobs and lending ear to their woes. Old Man Dan grumbled about having a woman chop his wood for him, but his wife soundly boxed him around the ears whenever she caught him at it, so Ai supposed she didn't mind too much. Always, she was careful to only use her bending in and around her house, which was separated from the village by a good distance. She played Pai Sho with her father on rainy days and wondered when she would see her mother again. 

But, as was common in the middle of a war, the peace was shattered in the space of a single morning. 

Ai had been gathering herbs by the forest's edge when she was pushed from behind, sending her staggering a few steps beyond the tree line. She'd whirled around to see chaos: boulders flying and flames blackening the ground. Chances were that they weren't here for them, hadn't even known that this little town full of old people existed, but once Ai saw who had pushed her- 

Her father, crushed underneath a boulder. Immediately the world fell away as she swayed on her feet, mind blank. The choked words reaching her ears may have well been screamed at her for all she hyper focused on them. "...My darling daughter, my precious child, you must survive no matter what, do you understand? No matter how you do so, you must live... I love you so much..." 

And oh, those were tears streaming down her face. Before she could say anything, she's suddenly blown backward with tremendous force. (Why didn't he use his bending to get me out of the way...? He must be unused to using it after so long hiding it...) 

Her travel through the air is broken by the impact with a tree, and it's enough to make her black out, the last thing she sees being distant flames through the canopy.


	2. Chapter 2

Ai was once the darling of her home village, as is wont to happen when you're the only child amongst a gaggle of elderly adults whose own children are all grown. She grew up knowing a dozen different laps that were warm to nap in, and the taste of a dozen different family recipes that had no descendant to be passed on to. Thanks to her father's apothecary business, she also knew every single ache and pain that beset the residents of Huide and which jars of cream or bottles of cloudy medicine she'd have to make to soothe them. 

Life in the village had often been boring and sometimes frustrating, but always it made her feel a calm sense of contentedness. Being grumbled at by old men for knowing how to patch up a roof or fix up a fence was nothing compared to grateful looks whoever they lived with gave in return, or the images her imagination dredged up of what their reactions would be if they knew precisely how many activities she was involved in that were 'improper' for a young lady. Filling up her days with helping out with her father's business, doing odd jobs around the village, sword practice, and bending lessons was monotonous at times but almost always fulfilling. Playing Pai Sho and other board games with her parents and then just her father on rainy days had produced many a treasured memory; they were some of the only ones she had where both her parents were smiling when they were in the same room. 

She may not have loved Huide, and had spent obscene amounts of time daydreaming about the far away places Chen had told her about, but there was no doubt that she belonged there. 

And now it was up in flames. 

Standing on the edge of the forest after having stumbled and limped after waking up felt surreal. There had never been many houses in Huide, but now it seemed impossible to see past the smoke that stained the sky and spread across it like spilled liquid as they burned. There were no voices, but she was suddenly gripped with an all-consuming desire to check if everyone was okay. Terumi, Dan, and everyone else... Suddenly the silence takes on a more ominous nature and it sends shivers down her spine, as if spiders made of ice are running up and down her back. 

She goes to take a step forward but the motion causes the world to start spinning around her and she's forced to close her eyes before the sight makes her vomit. 

Unbeknownst to her, Ai spends over ten minutes leaning against that tree, carefully measuring her breaths while her eyes stay clamped shut. 

She only takes notice of her surroundings again when she starts to hear approaching footsteps. Her eyes fly open but it's too late; a man dressed in dark green and yellow limps from around the empty carcass of a burned-out house. Earth Kingdom then, but that doesn't necessarily mean safe. Her stomach roils at the memory of the last time she saw her father and she grits her teeth to prevent the keen of pain that wants to move past her lips. 

Some portion of it must have escaped her anyway, because the man's head turns towards her and as soon as he sees her he swears, loudly. The surprise of it is enough to jolt her out of her thoughts a bit, and she tries to pay attention to what he's saying. 

"-kid, you need to get out of here. As far as I know I'm the last one left from my platoon and I can't protect you like this-" 

"Are the others okay? F-from the village?" For a moment it looks like he's going to snap at her from interrupting him, but one look at whatever face she's making is enough for him to sigh and go to shrug. He winces and apparently decides to just answer her instead:

"As far as I know most of them got out and fled; we didn't even know there was a village here, so I don't know if we got them all, but before everything went to shit we managed to get some civilians into the forest." 

It's almost enough to make her collapse in relief, but then the rest of what he said catches up to her and despite herself she can't help but want to assist. 

"I-I'm an apothecary in training," she begins. "You could come with me and I could heal up your wounds." 

The stranger is already shaking his head before she finishes speaking, though. "Nah, kid. I'd only slow you down with this," he gestures to his leg, which is oozing blood from a large gash lazily but steadily, "and there's bound to be more soon, since some got away. It's better if you save yourself." 

Ai can feel her blood turn to snow, melt like the kind that feeds the river in the spring, because even though her life has been relatively untouched by the war, it's always been influenced by it. She's not naive, and knows from eavesdropping on mother's and Chen's conversations that the best this man can expect is a lifetime of imprisonment on an off shore prison rig, and so still feels compelled to protest: "That's not-" 

"JUST GO!" He shouts, and she does, hobbling as fast as she can into the trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the death of her father was almost certainly an accident (as far as she knows anyway), Ai isn't going to start touting Earth Kingdom = Good anytime soon. She's already realised something that it took time for some members of the Gaang to learn (in my opinion), and that is that morality isn't black and white. She's been taught that Fire Nation doesn't equal bad from a young age, which is partially due to the fact that if it weren't for actions of her great-grandfather, a Fire Nation man, her great-grandmother likely wouldn't have survived and Ai wouldn't exist.

**Author's Note:**

> Woo! Hope you like this back story. This was difficult to re write.


End file.
